On Friday 13th September, radical right activist Tommy Robinson was released from prison after serving 9 weeks for contempt of court. Robinson was first jailed for this offence last year, when he livestreamed on Facebook a rape trial involving Muslim men. But this time the story has not attracted such uproar, with global Google searches about him plunging 10 times in comparison to last year’s peak. There is one notable difference: unlike in 2018, he is now banned from social media.
A growing network: from the inner circle to one-time supporters
A year ago, Robinson’s prison sentence turned him from keyboard warrior to poster boy for the international radical right. He was already well-connected in alt-media circles, but his trial put him in the radar of prominent politicians from right-wing and radical right parties, who spoke in his defence at two #FreeTommy marches in London. His fame rose to the point that Steve Bannon, former advisor to Donald Trump, described him as the ‘backbone’ of the United Kingdom.
At that time, Robinson became the perfect embodiment of the radical right’s victimisation narrative. His supporters loudly claimed that the UK had become a police state that curtailed freedom of speech and that Robinson was imprisoned for his political ideas.
